Assendelft [former municipality]

Assendelft is since 1974 part of Zaanstad; in 1960 the municipality counted
7100 inhabitants on 3111 hectares. The place was already mentioned in 1063
as Ascumannedilft. It is still a rural community.
The Coat of Arms is "gules a horse argent"; the flag was a banner of arms. Ralf
Hartemink at <http://www.ngw.nl/a/assendel.htm>
has this info: "The coat of arms with the horse caused some suspicion in former
times, because there were no horses in the village - all transport went
via canals!
There is a popular story: long ago the old barbarian inhabitants were
said to have killed a stallion. Horses were not known then and it was for
them a strange animal. As a reminder they have put the stallion on their
coat of armsand flag." Sierksma - Nederlands vlaggenboek, 1962, has this: "Flag: Red, with
a white stallion passant. This flag is not official. The mayor of Assendelft
told Sierksma that there was a very old flag in which there were some bullet-holes.
The flag is documented in a book printed before 1501 by the Kanunnik (canon)
Willem Herman van Gouda, from Stein, entitled "De Hollandiae Gelriaeque
Bellum" (About the war between Holland and Gelre) (late 15th century).
He saw in a battle the flag of Assendelft, which was given to them "Victori
et labori eorum caballum datur in vexillo" (For their victory and efforts
a stallion on a flag has been given to them)."
II have used the coat of arms in "Noord-Holland en zijn gemeenten', 1981,
to get the approximation of ierksma's black and white image. However the
horse on the old flag may look different: I have seen three different Coats of Arms...
According to Derk-Willem Visser the image of the flag was also in a
book dated 1571; he has made a drawing of it and promised to send it to
Benevex in due time (after his next book is finished).
Jarig Bakker,, 22 June 2001